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by x3tm 2699 days ago
I had to google to see what M. Gell-Mann had to do with this ... and it turns out he has nothing to do with it. Crichton just used his name to name an effect.

Is there a better name for this though? from behavioral sciences or psychology?

3 comments

Gell-Mann and Crichton are friends (acquaintances?) who have different expertises and notice different wrong stories in the paper. The parent quote is missing the reference to Gell-Mann, it goes "You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business." I think the name is pretty good as is?
There's a related one, though not from psychology: Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy.

"Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true--except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Knoll

I think the name is brilliant as one expects that the Gell-Mann effect is named after its primary creator, Murray Gell-Mann. If you know about the topic in detail, one knows that is not the case. A similar situation to what the Gell-Man effect is. I'm sure Crichton loved this fact and is one of the reasons he used Gell-Man's name for his coined idea.